The Thanks in Thanksgiving

At this time every year, we are meant to reflect on the blessings in our lives. For the suicidal person beating back the Beast that is suicidality, giving thanks about something – anything – can seem like an impossible task. If all you want to do is die, then what on earth are you possibly thankful for? Certainly, you’re not thankful for your life, are you?

This might be one instance (the most important instance, I might argue) that you need to let someone else hold your hope for you. What is this, you ask? Well, you need to ask someone to hold your hope for you until you can hold it for yourself. I remember my therapist of twenty-two years telling me she’d carry my hope when I told her I had none. You don’t have to wait until a friend or therapist offers to hold your hope – you can tell that person you are hopeless, and you need them to hold your hope until you can hold it yourself.

What on earth, you ask, do you have to be thankful for? I would argue that, as long as you’re still breathing, you ought to be thankful for the fact you’re alive. That said, giving thanks for our lives is the LAST thing we are grateful for. If I have learned anything in all these years spent battling mental illness and the Beast, learning to give thanks starts with the mundane.

Giving thanks for the little stuff is big stuff; once you can express thanks for things like the stars, the mountains, the ocean, dear friends, furkids – or your therapist or prescribing doctor – you are on your way to expressing thanks for YOU!

People talk about a “gratitude practice.” What, you ask, is a gratitude practice, and why is it so important? A gratitude practice is an act of intentionally jotting down two or three things (I would argue at first one is plenty) that you are grateful for each day. It takes a few weeks of this to form a habit.

So, you ask, what the hell are you thankful for when you’re battling an epic clash with the Beast? Well, dig deep and give thanks for the simplest things – for example, give thanks for the fact you have a roof over your head, food to eat, and the air you breathe. What you give thanks for is not that important; what is important is that you find something (anything, really) that you are even tangentially thankful for and get your gratitude practice off the ground.

The writing down of your gratitudes is important – if you don’t write them down, you don’t have them to look back on, to see that you DO have things you are indeed thankful for. I realize as I type this that I haven’t written my gratitudes down in a long time. I am not immune – what I suggest for you is certainly applicable to me – so I realize that I need to get back to my gratitude practice!

So, here goes my gratitudes for today:

1.) I am thankful for my family.

2.) I am thankful for my furkids.

3.) I am thankful for my health.

Gratitudes are something I never conceived of – for years and years (and still sometimes), I prayed every night that I wouldn’t wake up in the morning, and the next morning, I cursed the fact I woke up. I did not feel thankful for One. Single. Thing. If I can practice gratitudes, anyone can. Just remember, dig deep to find even just one thing you are grateful for. Don’t forget – you’ve got this.